


Pushing On

by Merfilly



Series: Future in the Making [10]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Future Fic, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-25
Updated: 2012-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:52:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chromia adapts and discovers something of joy. Others react to all that is learned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pushing On

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Aftermath of interfacing briefly touched on. And Ironhide wanting more interfacing, but when doesn't he?
> 
> 2\. Non-explicit xeno relationship.

Chromia rebooted to the sight of Arcee sitting vigil with her, and the buzz of Ironhide's fields near her, but out of her sight. She was not in the cell any longer, and she had new status indicators in her HUD. Her frame felt whole, her spark….

With a burst of static she came up to a sitting position, helm swiveling toward Ironhide even as she grabbed Arcee's hand and squeezed.

"You're both here!" Under the verbalization came a torrent of data signifying the depth of connection she was able to feel now. Arcee smiled at that, and nodded, pushing back all the relief and joy and love, while Ironhide rippled his armor plates a little to settle them from the flare at Chromia's sudden motion.

"Metroplex said the links were there. Just muted, because of the overlay that… the enemy put in you." Arcee looked at her cohort-mate curiously, to see if Chromia possessed any memory that might be helpful.

"No, bitlet; I don't remember anything between … losing both you and Elita One to coming alert on Junkion." Chromia's optics flashed; her hate for the opportunistic race had not died any, and now she had a faceless, nameless enemy to contend with.

Ironhide moved closer to the berth, up behind where she sat as she had focused back on Arcee, and settled his hands on her shoulders. "You know what's been done to you, Chromia?"

The femme shuttered her optics at that question, and truly explored her new sensor set, the connections to something larger than she had ever known before, and the pulse of a new life connected to her own.

~As free as I can make it, Chromia,~ came the thought from her symbiotic partner on the heels of her thinking about the idea she'd traded one prison for another. ~You share your senses and data in exchange for my spark filling yours. You can travel, so long as you return within a vorn or so.~

~You saved my existence, and gave me back the two survivors of my life before.~

~Just as your purpose was to purify the energon, so mine is to nurture. There is no debt.~ Metroplex sent a soothing wave of negation at the concept to his new partner. ~And, you will discover, your purpose has new life in me. It is why all colonies once had one of my kind.~

Chromia's explosion of disbelief made her optics flash open, but it made sense. Every colony had, in its heyday, been capable of producing an energon that was not quite like Cybertron's but adequate to their needs.

"They bleed for us!"

"Chromia?" Ironhide asked, but Arcee received the pulse of data, the realization, directly from the symbiotic femme. 

"We will be able to provide again!" Arcee said in joy, hugging the older femme while Ironhide querulously demanded an explanation.

Eventually, they calmed down from the joy of knowing they still existed with a means to do what they had been core-programmed for, and were able to tell him.

`~`~`~`~`

Ironhide rested with the heavier medic pinning his legs, data cords lazily retracting. Too many emotions in too short a span, but the 'facing was always a good defrag measure for the warrior, and Ratchet didn't seem to be complaining. 

"I'm glad she seems to be settling into this new role," Ratchet told Ironhide, feeling the warrior contemplate just how soon he'd be able to convince Chromia to some alone time. It made Ironhide chuckle, as their rapport let that much spill between them. "And from what you say… it's almost like there is a providence reaching out to our lives."

"Chromia and Arcee were already in a tight data-lock when I left; have to think Metroplex was in on it too." Ironhide vented in contentment. "Real energon. And if we can just convince Prime…"

Ratchet snorted. "Better look to Hot Rod for that. You know how Optimus views his own coding." 

That made the warrior mutter and grumble a few choice curses that Sideswipe had so helpfully taught him to replace the considerable invective that had once been Ironhide's forte. When he wound down, he looked down his frame to the resting medic. "I know my code's broken and patched and horrible. But we've got to start looking forward."

"Even with a new war on the event horizon?" Ratchet asked him, trying hard not to hear the cries and snapping metal of the past.

"Maybe especially so. And those two are the only ones with the full range of code, if we're going to have any hope of resurrecting the various frame classes wiped out during the war." Ironhide nodded for emphasis.

"I want to be watching when you tackle Prime on that one," Ratchet told him, but he let his agreement filter through, as well as his pride in his lover for being so forward thinking now.

`~`~`~`~`

"What now?"

The two quiet words made the silver mech look up at the armored human, perched on the shoulder of the mech they both loved, all of them bathed in the eerie blue light of a Martian sunrise. That, more than anything else, always inflamed Mikaela's love of living on an alien planet.

"I keep deciphering the data, the directional burst that it was aimed at, and hope it clicks with anything in the database. Prime here gets to do his usual worrying, since he's so good at it…" which drew a laugh from her and an aggrieved vent of air from Optimus…"and 'Hide will start recruiting a defense force."

"I will contact Megatron. We both need to be prepared, as she was originally in the vicinity of Cybertron."

Jazz nodded. "Wise mech is wise, to borrow one of those old Earth memes."

"You use them so well." Mikaela pushed off from Optimus's shoulder, using the armor's mobility and the lighter gravity to land neatly in the dust. "I don't like facing a new war, but I'm going to say it here and now." She made sure both mechs were watching her. "Earth's part of this fight. Regardless of the unrest and the fact they don't much like the ones like me who are becoming hybrids, they don't want another Chicago. So keep them in the loop, Jazz."

The spy, saboteur, and Prime's Consort nodded. "I'll work through Ultra Magnus on that. You're right."

"I have no doubt that no matter what this enemy has learned of us, they will be completely unprepared for human ingenuity," Optimus rumbled, feeling more confidence in this unknown future than he ever had leading his people against his brother's.

"Damn straight," Mikaela answered.

**Author's Note:**

> This concludes this arc of "Future In the Making". Many thanks to Femme4Jack for all the world building, bouncing ideas, and general support. Also, for Patronus. The Autobot future could not have happened without her, and the Decepticon one would have been a little more boring.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Battlefields](https://archiveofourown.org/works/371539) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)




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